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Germany, a social welfare state in Europe, has implemented many forms of buffers and narcotics to lessen the effects of a recession. But were some 12 months enough time for the slow political pyramids in the world, to correct the real underlying misgivings, misalignments, legalized crimes, earmarkings, waste, misjudgment and biased decisions, to learn and act from the lessons real world economics slapped in our face?

2010 will be the year, which will break or make us.

Either we will get some traction of growth, stop layoffs, create new jobs, hire again, … or the defaults on revolving debt (public, private, real estate, credit cards, housing etc) will be the overkill for credit markets.

And when countries/states/councils/cities can’t fund their deficit spending (aside from companies who can’t expand bc capital is too expensive) - then they have to cut spending and raise taxes. In effect killing growth.

What I, in a snap reasoning and judgment, can think of, is that we wasted our opportunity in the last plus 12 months, making the time worth suffering by doing the hard things. Coming clean with so many things which are so wrong. And everybody is complaining about it, but nobody stands up.

Where are we supposed to look for help when governments begin to fail functioning? Fail working efficiently and effective (what is hardly the case right now and in the past decades). What if they fail? What if we lose trust in them? In the marketplace, in banks, in the currency. I don’t want to paint the devil on the wall, but it is really a probability of the worst.

It is already clear that the short-time working program has simultaneously been a lifesaver, a buffer and a narcotic. Frank-Jürgen Weise, head of the Federal Employment Agency, is already warning that the worst is yet to come for some industrial sectors, especially the machine-tool and auto industries. “Hundreds of thousands are currently still on short time, but that won’t be sustainable in the long run,” he says. (Source)

Continued:

Short-time working can save jobs in the short term, but it cannot invalidate the laws of economics.

The crisis is entering a new phase. If layoffs are imminent because a company no longer has enough work for its employees and must modify its business to cope with new conditions, one option is to shift employees to so-called “transfer” companies with the help of government support. These transfer companies provide professional training or job placement services. “Before the crisis, we had five to eight of these companies, but now we have about 60,” says Herbert Rössle from the Stuttgart employment agency. And, once again, the metal industry is the first to take advantage of the programs.

In the end, the short-time working program is, more than anything, a bet that there will be an economic upturn in 2010. But no one knows how the wager will turn out.

“If the economy does not pick up steam, it will catch up with us,” says Burkhard Schwenker, CEO of the management consulting firm Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. “But if the economy does recover, Germany, as an export-oriented country with strong companies, will benefit in particular.”

Ok, why is it that movies, who can’t call themselves documentaries or sci-fi flicks with a view towards the near future, never get a good review? And only a view realize that we might have real problems to solve, instead to go to movies, and get packaged, categorized, entertainment with no take-away. Hollywood, 90 minutes, easy digestable, junk food, addicting, shit, making your brain gooey.

Doesn’t ask you for your opinion, your own thought, for your contribution, for your action, it’s asking for money. And paper money has no inherent value, it is as valuable as much as people trust it to be of value for future transactions in a marketplace.

Ok, some [movies] were good. Children of Men, 12 Monkeys, Terminator, I Robot, , some were semi-ok like 28 Days Later or The Day After Tomorrow, [maybe ‘The Book of Eli’ will be good], and many more to come.

If I had to name one flick which, in my opinion, really transports the message, it has to be TDtESS. But I have to add, that I am not a huge movie bug and I haven’t watched all apocalypse movies.

I just wanted to say, scientific peer reviews about gene mutation, viruses, rising sea levels, etcetera are much more horrific than Hollywood can ever put into a story or make a CGI effect out of it.

PS: Writing this just after having watched The Happening, and read that it did not very well with reviews. And there are a lot.

fuckyeahladygaga:

iheartchucks:

american-apologies:

Some call her a postmodern genius, while others call her a postmodern twat. But when it comes down to it, she’s simply just another superficial studio-produced pop star, capitalizing on being “weird” because Madonna got too wrinkly. For those of you claiming that this 3rd-generation diva-synth-pop is “daring”, “experimental”, or “groundbreaking”, you need to realize that everything she’s done has been done not only just once, but many many more times. So we’re sorry to the world for unleashing this shallow and mundane dance muzak onto you, but this is what you get for plaguing us with Eiffel 65!

Madonna became too wrinkly, lmao :))

Scientists and technologists have the same uneasy status in our society as the Jedi in the Galactic Republic. They are scorned by the cultural left and the cultural right, and young people avoid science and math classes in hordes. The tedious particulars of keeping ourselves alive, comfortable and free are being taken offline to countries where people are happy to sweat the details, as long as we have some foreign exchange left to send their way. Nothing is more seductive than to think that we, like the Jedi, could be masters of the most advanced technologies while living simple lives: to have a geek standard of living and spend our copious leisure time vegging out.

If the “Star Wars” movies are remembered a century from now, it’ll be because they are such exact parables for this state of affairs. Young people in other countries will watch them in classrooms as an answer to the question: Whatever became of that big rich country that used to buy the stuff we make? The answer: It went the way of the old Republic.

(Source)

This was John Biggs closing on the Kindle DRM hack.

I’d say no, we would rather have it open and pay for quality. The technology is there that PDF files have a aqua sign+your email when you purchase the document, ehm, information.

Wait a second, isn’t information freely available on the internet? I’d say, to a certain account. If you want accountable content for your study reading list, essay, thesis, PhD work, then you have to ‘reward’ the accountable creator of the accountable information to a certain extent as you see it.

I like creditwritedowns.com, edited by @edwardnh. I wanted to thank him this way for highlighting the trends for 2010, and giving us all a reality check. Here are my favs for today 23.12.2009.

• 2010: The Year to Focus on Sovereign Debt | The Big Picture (This analogy between Euro-dependent sovereign nation and U.S. state is one I have already made between California and Ireland. Here David Kotok makes it for Greece and California.)

• Why Aren’t Banks Lending? They Are Being Rational | The Big Picture (If you are worried at all about the “quality” of your capital and not the “quantity” it would still be prudent to cut off lending to those you deem not credit worthy. For the sake of argument, call this behavioral economics in action. This is what the D-process is all about.)

• FT.com | Economists’ Forum | Martin Wolf answers your questions: Topic three – Banks refusing to lend (Supply side of credit is stuck in a non-equilibrium state. The psychology of a balance sheet recession dynamics at play.)

• ‘New Normal’ Tops 2009 List of Overused Phrases: Caroline Baum – Bloomberg.com

• FT.com – Sovereign risk tops bankers’ 2010 fears

• Fitch warns that Britain and France risk losing their AAA rating – Telegraph

• Charles Goodhart warns of return to recession as bank lending falls – Telegraph

All are on the same tune. Debt. When we have no money, we can’t lend money. The black hole can’t be fixed with drywall (I said that before). Can somebody please write a long blog post or book titled; Where the hack is all the money gone!? Accounting Style baby!

Good (uhm the bad (2) is) that this is nothing new to me. So the shock isn’t there (recovery too), and it turned into a personal depression already.

To conclude, a tough decade ends with disbelieve. Do we get the recommended 30% with all that for another storm?

I wish I had the right table to pound on. We need to pound on the table. Because we were and are sold out.

One thing I have observed is, that 2009 was the battle for ideas and the world. Economic ideas and principles. In politics, economy, and finance. The newspaper discussion is a battle for ideas and economic principles too. And the internet, uhm, the network, too.